History of James Allan, The Celebrated Northumberland Piper. Giving an account of his parentage, education, extraordinary adventures and exploits; his numerous enlistings and wonderful escapes: -with a brief narrative of his last confinement and death in Durham Gaol, which happened in 1810.
Files
Title
History of James Allan, The Celebrated Northumberland Piper. Giving an account of his parentage, education, extraordinary adventures and exploits; his numerous enlistings and wonderful escapes: -with a brief narrative of his last confinement and death in Durham Gaol, which happened in 1810.
Alternative Title
The Celebrated Northumberland Piper.
The Minister and his three sons.
The Thistle
Publisher
Glasgow: Printed for the Booksellers
Date
1840-1850 per National Library of Scotland
Extent
24 pages
Is Part Of
Chapbook #19 in a bound collection of 20 chapbooks (s0231b06)
Description
127 is printed at the bottom of the title-page.
Abstract
Allan [Allen], James [Jimmy] (1734–1810), Northumbrian piper and rogue, was born at Hepple, Northumberland, probably in March 1734, and baptized at Rothbury, Northumberland, on 21 April 1734, the son of William Allan or Allen, also known as Wull Faa, a noted vermin hunter and performer on the Northumbrian small pipes. Allan's 'mother was a gypsy' (Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum display notes) and he was the second youngest in the family, which had links to the Faas, a clan of Gypsies noted for roving the Anglo-Scottish border. His father taught him to play the Northumbrian small pipes and, in a restless life, music was to remain one of few steadying influences. It is possible that he was the James Allan who married Isabel Muffat at Rothbury on 1 March 1763, and that they had at least one child, a daughter, Philis (bap. 4 November 1765). As Allan's interest in music developed, he was taken by seeing the band of the Northumberland militia at Alnwick, Northumberland, and enlisted as a substitute.
He kept up his links with Alnwick and eventually succeeded in becoming official piper to Elizabeth Percy, countess of Northumberland, a post he held for two years. In October 1769 he was appointed one of the town musicians at Alnwick but the following Michaelmas he misbehaved and was dismissed and eventually lost the favour of his benefactor.
Most of Allan's adult life was taken up with rambling and it is here that 'the line between fact and fiction becomes thin' (Askew, 63). He made his livelihood out of piping and stealing and, beyond that, by 'enlisting as a soldier and deserting—often having received his bounty money'. He was eventually arrested in 1803 at Jedburgh, Roxburghshire, for stealing a horse from Matthew Robinson of Gateshead, co. Durham, after a night drinking in Newcastle upon Tyne. From Jedburgh he was taken to Durham city where, described as 'the famous piper' (Newcastle Courant, 6 Aug 1803), he was tried and sentenced to death at the assizes in August 1803 for horse stealing. The death sentence was commuted to transportation at the end of the assizes, but on account of Allan's age and poor health he remained in England.
Allan was imprisoned first in Durham gaol for seven years, and then in the Durham house of correction, where he died on 13 November 1810. News of a royal pardon arrived a few months after his death, reportedly one of the first signed by the prince regent, afterwards George IV. He was buried in the churchyard of St Nicholas, later covered by part of Durham's central market place, although it is said that one of his last requests was for his body to be returned to Rothbury.
Allan's infamy survived him, and in the years after his death numerous tales of his deeds appeared in print. When compiling a brief biography of the piper in the late nineteenth century Richard Welford noted that the sources on Allan available to him included chapbooks based on the piper's life and hawked to shepherds and milkmaids in Northumberland and a series of books of varying reliability produced in the early nineteenth century. Writers generally described Allan as a man of many diversions with a great love of drinking and gambling and an eye for pretty women. He was said to have married three times (Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum display notes). Cattle, sheep, and horse stealing as well as robbing his companions were among his identifiable vices. Drawings were published depicting episodes taken from his mythologized life, including an escape from armed guards, being rescued by a young lady in Batavia, and piping in the runners at a horse race in northern England.
Allan was remembered as a virtuoso on the bagpipes, an expert at the double hornpipe played at 3/2 or 9/4 pace, and closely associated with the music of his native Cheviot hills. Woodcuts of his playing both the Northumbrian small pipes and the highland pipes have survived but the veracity of any surviving sketches of him was brought into question by the researches of the bagpipe historian Gilbert Askew in the 1930s. In the early twenty-first century, a dance tune known as 'Jimmy Allen' remained one of the most popular tunes played at traditional music sessions, used at barn dances and ceilidhs across the English-speaking world. The piece is firmly in the vein of Northumbrian rant-type reels; it is uncertain whether it was written by the piper or composed in his memory. Another tune entitled 'Coffee and Tea' or 'Jamie Allen's Fancy' has also survived. A case at the Chantry Bagpipe Museum, Morpeth, Northumberland, dedicated to his life both inside and outside piping, was still being maintained in 2007. His ghost, playing the pipes, is said to wander the area around the western end of Elvet Bridge, Durham, near the remains of the house of correction. The early twenty-first century saw a renewal of interest in Allan as a hero of Northumbrian cultural identity. An opera, The Ballad of Jamie Allan, composed by John Harle with a libretto by Tom Pickard, premièred at The Sage, Gateshead, in 2005. --From the Dictionary of National Biography
He kept up his links with Alnwick and eventually succeeded in becoming official piper to Elizabeth Percy, countess of Northumberland, a post he held for two years. In October 1769 he was appointed one of the town musicians at Alnwick but the following Michaelmas he misbehaved and was dismissed and eventually lost the favour of his benefactor.
Most of Allan's adult life was taken up with rambling and it is here that 'the line between fact and fiction becomes thin' (Askew, 63). He made his livelihood out of piping and stealing and, beyond that, by 'enlisting as a soldier and deserting—often having received his bounty money'. He was eventually arrested in 1803 at Jedburgh, Roxburghshire, for stealing a horse from Matthew Robinson of Gateshead, co. Durham, after a night drinking in Newcastle upon Tyne. From Jedburgh he was taken to Durham city where, described as 'the famous piper' (Newcastle Courant, 6 Aug 1803), he was tried and sentenced to death at the assizes in August 1803 for horse stealing. The death sentence was commuted to transportation at the end of the assizes, but on account of Allan's age and poor health he remained in England.
Allan was imprisoned first in Durham gaol for seven years, and then in the Durham house of correction, where he died on 13 November 1810. News of a royal pardon arrived a few months after his death, reportedly one of the first signed by the prince regent, afterwards George IV. He was buried in the churchyard of St Nicholas, later covered by part of Durham's central market place, although it is said that one of his last requests was for his body to be returned to Rothbury.
Allan's infamy survived him, and in the years after his death numerous tales of his deeds appeared in print. When compiling a brief biography of the piper in the late nineteenth century Richard Welford noted that the sources on Allan available to him included chapbooks based on the piper's life and hawked to shepherds and milkmaids in Northumberland and a series of books of varying reliability produced in the early nineteenth century. Writers generally described Allan as a man of many diversions with a great love of drinking and gambling and an eye for pretty women. He was said to have married three times (Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum display notes). Cattle, sheep, and horse stealing as well as robbing his companions were among his identifiable vices. Drawings were published depicting episodes taken from his mythologized life, including an escape from armed guards, being rescued by a young lady in Batavia, and piping in the runners at a horse race in northern England.
Allan was remembered as a virtuoso on the bagpipes, an expert at the double hornpipe played at 3/2 or 9/4 pace, and closely associated with the music of his native Cheviot hills. Woodcuts of his playing both the Northumbrian small pipes and the highland pipes have survived but the veracity of any surviving sketches of him was brought into question by the researches of the bagpipe historian Gilbert Askew in the 1930s. In the early twenty-first century, a dance tune known as 'Jimmy Allen' remained one of the most popular tunes played at traditional music sessions, used at barn dances and ceilidhs across the English-speaking world. The piece is firmly in the vein of Northumbrian rant-type reels; it is uncertain whether it was written by the piper or composed in his memory. Another tune entitled 'Coffee and Tea' or 'Jamie Allen's Fancy' has also survived. A case at the Chantry Bagpipe Museum, Morpeth, Northumberland, dedicated to his life both inside and outside piping, was still being maintained in 2007. His ghost, playing the pipes, is said to wander the area around the western end of Elvet Bridge, Durham, near the remains of the house of correction. The early twenty-first century saw a renewal of interest in Allan as a hero of Northumbrian cultural identity. An opera, The Ballad of Jamie Allan, composed by John Harle with a libretto by Tom Pickard, premièred at The Sage, Gateshead, in 2005. --From the Dictionary of National Biography
Coverage
Northumberland, England
Subject
Religion and Morals
Chapbooks - Scotland - Glasgow
James, Allan, 1734-1810
Source
Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph Library, Guelph, Ontario
Is Referenced By
National Library of Scotland http://www.nls.uk/
Format
JPEGs and PDF derived from master file, which was scanned from the original book in 24-bit color at 600 dpi in TIFF format using an Epson Expression 10000XL scanner.
Rights
In the public domain; For higher quality reproductions, contact Archival & Special Collections, University of Guelph. libaspc@uoguelph.ca 519-824-4120, Ext. 53413
Contributor
Archival and Special Collections, University of Guelph Library, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Citation
“History of James Allan, The Celebrated Northumberland Piper. Giving an account of his parentage, education, extraordinary adventures and exploits; his numerous enlistings and wonderful escapes: -with a brief narrative of his last confinement and death in Durham Gaol, which happened in 1810.,” Scottish Chapbooks, accessed April 25, 2024, https://scottishchapbooks.lib.uoguelph.ca/items/show/845.
